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Why Atheism Is More Natural Than Religion

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Why Atheism Is More Natural Than Religion View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Jagiellonian Univeristy Repository Studia Religiologica 48 (4) 2015, s. 313–326 doi:10.4467/20844077SR.15.023.4762 www.ejournals.eu/Studia-Religiologica Why Atheism Is More Natural Than Religion Konrad Szocik University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów Philip L. Walden Abstract Cognitive science of religion (CSR) suggests the naturalness of religion. Religious beliefs are viewed as natural because they are intuitive and cognitively effortless. They are also inevitable and more obvious than atheism. In consequence, atheism is an unnatural phenomenon which re- quires special cultural and social support. However, this naturalness of religion hypothesis seems overestimated. Here we show that atheism is more natural than religion and religious beliefs in the cognitive sense because it meets the criteria appropriate for natural selection in the sense of ultimate explanation. Religion and religious beliefs require cultural inputs. Without cultural support, they seem unnatural. Key words: cognitive science of religion, religious beliefs, naturalness, intuitiveness, theism, athe- ism, natural selection Słowa kluczowe: religioznawstwo kognitywne, wierzenia religijne, naturalność, intuicyjność, teizm, ateizm, naturalna selekcja Religion cannot be cognitively natural because it is biologically unnatural The “cognitive theory of religion” was introduced by Stewart Guthrie in 1980.1 Cog- nitive science of religion (CSR) assumes the immutability and homogeneity of cogni- tive mechanisms which are independent of cultural diversity.2 CSR explains (but does 1 A. Visala, Ashgate Science and Religion: Naturalism, Theism and the Cognitive Study of Religion: Religion Explained? Surrey 2011, p. 10; S. Guthrie, A Cognitive Theory of Religion, “Current Anthropol- ogy” 1980, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 2–3. 2 D. Leech, A. Visala, Naturalistic Explanation for Religious Belief [and Comments and Reply], “Philosophy Compass” 2011, no. 6 (8), p. 554. 314 not interpret) religious beliefs, ideas, and behaviours, and looks for their cognitive roots.3 CSR naturalises religion and religious beliefs.4 Religious beliefs are inter- preted as a natural phenomenon which is a result of cognitive biases.5 Atheism does not have this natural cognitive support.6 We are aware that the term “religion” and “religious beliefs” are the subject of debate and are not unequivocal. When we use these terms we mean an individual belief that there is another kind of reality, or at least another kind of phenomena which are evoked by these religious concepts. We do not identify these terms with theism. We refer to the beliefs which are possessed by an individual. In this paper, the term “naturalness” in the light of CSR signifies that religious beliefs are a cognitively effortless and intuitive phenomenon. Religious beliefs are more effortless than atheism, which “requires some hard cognitive work.”7 Religious beliefs are produced by natural cognitive intuitions (HADD, for instance), and are cognitively effortless. Cognitive easiness is a consequence of the assumption that religious beliefs are produced by intuitive biases. In this paper we do not accept this point of view. Atheism is less intuitive than religious culture, but it seems a natural starting point in a pre-religious environment. Alleged theistic inclinations which are associated with natural cognition cannot be a result of cognition, but instead are a re- sult of its cultural environment. These cultural inputs result in religious interpretations of the world becoming easier and more natural than atheistic explanations. However, this attractiveness of religion and religious beliefs seems associated with their psy- chological and existential usefulness rather than with the activity of natural cognitive mechanisms, which can support both religious and atheistic concepts. We reject the above definition of the naturalness of religion as an intuitive and cognitively effortless phenomenon. We also refer to the third meaning of naturalness: something evolved by natural selection. CSR usually rejects this sense of natural- ness in regard to religious beliefs, and interprets religion as an evolutionary by-prod- uct. We wish to say that naturalness understood as intuitiveness in general – and not only in religious matters – requires this third kind of evolutionary naturalness. We assume that evolutionary continuity over a long time makes a phenomenon more intuitive than other phenomena which are not supported by evolution. We mean in- tuitiveness as a result of an adaptation when some trait is evolved by natural selection for the purpose of some function. Atheism seems natural at the level of biological selection. It may also be natural at the level of cultural group and individual selection, where there are no religious inputs. Religion and religious beliefs work on the level of cultural group selection, 3 J.E. Benson, The “New Cognitive Science of Religion” and Religious Pluralism, “Dialog: A Jour- nal of Theology” 2007, vol. 46, no. 4, p. 382; S. Atran, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, New York–Oxford, p. 173. 4 E.T. Lawson, Towards a Cognitive Science of Religion, “Numen” 2000, vol. 47, no. 3 (Religions in the Disenchanted World), p. 344. 5 A. Visala, op.cit., p. 55. 6 A. Norenzayan, W.M. Gervais, The Origins of Religious Disbelief, “Trends in Cognitive Sciences” 2013, vol. 17, no. 1, p. 20. 7 Ibidem. 315 and may often be understood as an adaptation, but in the sense of cultural, not natural, selection. Religion and religious beliefs can give an advantage for one religious indi- vidual over a non-religious individual in the natural selection sense too. In this case, when we refer to a difference between proximate and ultimate explanation, religious beliefs are natural in the proximate but not in the ultimate sense. In the Holocene era, benefits appropriate for an acceptance of religious beliefs connect cultural group se- lection with natural evolution when a religious group works better than a secular one. In secular societies, religion lost its selective and adaptive advantage at the level of group selection. We can echo Ara Norenzayan’s comment that “Big Gods were replaced by Big Governments.”8 Religious beliefs work on the level of individual se- lection. Religion and religious beliefs are psychologically important for the believer in secular societies too, and their psychological usefulness is more important than the desire for religious experience and moral support. Is this psychological advantage of religion and religious beliefs a kind of cultural or a kind of biological evolution? It may be interpreted in this case as an adaptation evolved by natural individual selec- tion. This correlation is accidental and contingent and does not work at the level of natural group selection. Consequently, religion and religious beliefs may be an adap- tation at the level of cultural group selection and natural individual selection, but not at the level of natural group selection. Naturalness of religion and religious beliefs at the level of the individual, in a biological sense, also requires prior cultural group selection. This is why the third meaning of naturalness is needed to show that religion and religious beliefs cannot be natural in the first and the second sense (intuitively and cognitively effortless), because they did not evolve by natural selection as the general human feature. The prior biological intuitiveness of nonbelief in the Pleistocene era was replaced by religious cultural inputs in the Holocene. This conventional and contingent advan- tage and popularity of religious beliefs and religion does not imply their intuitiveness in a cognitive sense. The power of religion and religious beliefs was the result of their psychological usefulness for individual and political as well as social and economic benefits for the group – benefits in the sense of parochial altruism. Religion and reli- gious beliefs play a role for love and trust within the group, and for hate and conflicts with those outside the group.9 However, this correlation is not stable and does not support the cognitive naturalness of religion hypothesis claimed by CSR. We would like to show that the usefulness and popularity of religious beliefs is, the result of their psychological and social utility, rather than of natural theistic or religious incli- nations of human cognition. Cognition in a secular environment supports a develop- ment of secular, not religious ideas. Economic equality and existential security cause the decline of religion. The agricultural revolution caused the rise of social hierarchy and inequality. Religions and religious beliefs also evolved in the Holocene. It seems that they were correlated with inequality and social misery. It may be that the lack of 8 Ibidem, p. 171. 9 H. Rusch, The Evolutionary Interplay of Intergroup Conflict and Altruism in Humans: a Review of Parochial Altruism Theory and Prospects for Its Extension, “Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences” 2014, vol. 281, p. 1. 316 religious beliefs in the Pleistocene, an era in which small human groups were equal, explains the real origin of religious beliefs not connected with natural cognition. Natural selection and information processes exclude the theory of the cognitive naturalness of religion.10 In the pre-religious environment in the Pleistocene, reli- gious beliefs are not biologically important. Religious
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